Posted on 01/02/2005 5:44:49 AM PST by LS
Last week I posted a thread on Tom WOlfe's new book, "I Am Charlotte Simmons," about life on an Ivy League campus in 2005. There were some great comments (including my favorite, which I don't agree with, that "71-year-old men should not write about 21-year-old girls"). I thought Wolfe captured the tensions of a culturally conservative young woman who found herself totally adrift in a sea of immorality and lunacy pretty well.
The other night, Wolfe was on C-SPAN's "Booknotes" with Brian Lamb. The calls were remarkably level-headed. One caller asked Wolfe about conservatism in his books. He didn't say he had conservative messages, but that everyone assumed that because he poked fun at liberals, which is verboten. But overall he pretty much admitted to being a conservative. He said that at a dinner party, all the Liblits were beside themselves just before the election asking, "What can we do about Bush?" After it went around the table and they looked at Woolfe, he said, "Well, if all else fails you can vote for him." According to Wolfe, "They looked at me like I had admitted to being a child molestor."
At any rate, he had a great comment about "Charlotte Simmons," who is him (which is why I think the 71-year-old man comment doesn't fit): he said "I am Charlotte Simmons. It is a book about a girl who thinks she wants a life of the mind, but in reality she wants to be a star." Does that not sum up the "celebrity culture" that Rush has detailed?
He further went on to detail how, for the first time in his memory, living "legend" authors like John Updike, Norman Mailer, and John Irving publically have attacked Wolfe for his previous hit, "A Man In Full," mainly (in his view) because it sold 1.4 million and they are envious. He refers to them as the "three stooges." Good characterization. He wants to create a "Hippocratic Oath" for writers, with the central principle being, "First, ENTERTAIN." Good advice.
Now I'm reading Michael Crichton's "State of Fear," another book sure to send the Liblits into paroxisms of denial and hate. Crichton's is the first novel I've ever seen with scholarly footnotes! He actually has the scientific papers noted in the book, and he KNOWS THIS STUFF. Forget for a moment the plot, or whether he has a hit as "entertainment." This is going to be a hugely important book because it is the first to really break from the environmental whacko mindset among the Liblits. Moreover, according to Crichton, the studies often have as their conclusions things that are not supported at all in the EVIDENCE! If he is correct, either the scholars themselves, or the journal editors in the abstracts and conclusions actually "massage" the conclusions to a pro-warming message when in fact, overwhelmingly, the science does not come CLOSE to supporting such nonsense.
These authors/books are important. They show a fissure---if a small one---in the monolithic entertainment/literature lobby of the libs, and these men will take some hits. Fortunately for them, they wer prominent enough and wealthy enough that no one can silence them.
Now let's see if Crichton will take on illegal immigration next!
Probably the Sullivan Law, no guns allowed in NYC!
read later
I've learned a lot from this thread. Thanks for starting it!
"Can anyone remember the last major motion picture made where the bad guys were on the left?"
Nope. One problem may be that Leftist policies are so slow-acting. I mean, a movie about the slow suffocation of freedom over five decades through relentless taxation, curbs on free speech and erosion of moral values just isn't going to be a good movie! =)
You beat me to it, bd!
"Radical Chic" pulls absolutely no punches. The early Wolfe. Using a Battle Axe instead of today's highly refined rapier. The Leonard Bernstein Cocktail Party is not to be missed!
Truly enjoyed "Jousting with Charlie and SAM" and was pleased to see that flavor reflected in parts of "The Right Stuff"!
Jack.
I read Updike (I think) and realized he was basically ripping off Gunter Grass for an English reading audience. Irving's "Prayer for Owen Meany" was interesting but about 100 pages too long.
I also recommend "Bonfire Of The Vanities" which is brilliant (the Tom Hanks movie doesn't even begin to do the book justice). It is a tale of an overprivileged yuppie who gets caught in the maws of the politically correct justice system and it has some really hilarious twists and turns.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED....
A bizzare thing happened regarding my reading of "State of Fear" that just blew me away....
I finished reading the book on Christmas Eve, and enjoyed almost every page of it. Of course the last part of the book details a plot by eco-terrorists to create a huge TSUNAMI in the Solomon Islands by the use of under-water explosives and hypersonic cavitation generators. They were hoping the tsunami would hit the coast of California on the last day of a "catastrophe" conference about global warming. The tsunami would add a real exclamation point to the end of the conference!
Crichton goes into great detail explaining the physics of a tsunami, and how they operate--it was absolutely fascinating! The eco-terrorists were unable to create a wave large enough to reach California, but they certainly were able to create one big enough to ravage the Solomon Islands!
Upon reading this, I thought it would be a LONG TIME before I ever saw a tsunami with the kind of force and power that the eco-terrorists wanted to create in the Solomons...
...just two days later, what should be reported all over the news but a GIANT TSUNAMI killing thousands of people along the coast of the Indian Ocean!
Crichton must have one hell of a publicity firm....
Michael Crichton = Tsumnami
In the book he discribes a man made Tsunami. Makes you wonder?!?
Well, to show you how quickly it's catching on, my conserv. Dem colleague at the U. who teaches history of science is now REQUIRING the book for his course!
I bought and read the book based on the reviews in this thread, just finished it yesterday. AWESOME BOOK! and a fun read. I agree with you, the speech by the professor on the politics of fear was incredibly intense, one of the best parts of the book, reminded me some of "The Tipping Point". I also like Crichton's pointing out several times these non-profits raise billions of dollars and have NO accountability at all. A politican running for a seat on the local water board has to do more reporting than any of these huge, rich eco-lobbies.
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